In the area of medical technology, much advancement have been made to assist individuals who have previously been considered to be disabled in some way, to lead a relatively normal life in spite of such disabilities. Such advancements include the provision of hearing aids and cochlear implants for the hearing impaired, as well as pacemakers for those who experience cardiac problems, to name a few. However with regard to persons suffering from spinal cord injury and those who have lost function of their limbs, the provision of a device or devices to return desired function to the individual has as yet proven difficult to implement. Functional electrical stimulation (FES) systems of various types are seen to have particular application in providing persons suffering from spinal cord injury or deficiency, such as paraplegia, with a capacity to make controlled movements of their dysfunctional legs.
Functional electrical stimulation systems use electronics to generate electrical impulses. These impulses are then delivered to the nerves or muscles of a subject via electrodes to stimulate movement of the muscles that are otherwise dysfunctional. In order for useful and controlled movements of limbs to be achieved several muscles must usually be operated in concert. This is normally achieved by an algorithm executed under the control of the FES system to deliver a pattern or sequence of stimulation impulses.
An important aspect of the successful implementation of such an FES system is the provision of a control technique that controls the limbs of a patient so that they follow a desired trajectory. It is extremely difficult, however, to choose a trajectory of the limbs so that a functional task such as standing is performed. In one proposal, control is provided by a touch pad interface which can be activated by the subject's fingers to some control types of movement, such as standing, sitting and walking.
Such touch pad interfaces as known in the art do not provide an intuitive interface for the subject with the FES system and assume that the subject has full hand control to enable use of such a device. Existing FES systems are, therefore, relatively difficult to learn how to use and require a certain amount of dexterity which has the potential to move subjects in undesirable ways.
Any discussion of documents, acts, materials, devices, articles or the like which has been included in the present specification is solely for the purpose of providing a context for the present invention. It is not to be taken as an admission that any or all of these matters form part of the prior art base or were common general knowledge in the field relevant to the present invention before the priority date of each claim of this application.